There is this woman in Colorado who’s being sued for displaying a peace symbol on her home—it’s very weird.

A homeowners association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti-Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan.

Well, it is a peace symbol, you know, so it is rather abstractly against the Iraq war. There was also this long-dead Jewish rabbi that some people call the “Prince of Peace”, and I understand he’s having a holiday sometime soon…I wonder if the homeowner’s association will be policing the housing development for Christian symbols, too? Probably. These guys do sound hardcore.

I’ve never heard of the peace symbol being associated with Satan. I think someone’s making stuff up. Couldn’t they have just said it was a symbol for those damned dirty long-haired hippies, and left it at that?

Also, look at this: it’s pathetic.

Here, let me show you how it’s done. I think she needs to escalate.

This is a house down the street from me, here in the red state wilderness of western Minnesota. This display has been up every year that I’ve been here—that peace symbol must be about 12 feet in diameter.

See? That’s how you flaunt a peace symbol. It makes me feel a little better every time I walk by it.

Ah, the power of the news and internet. The tinpot dictators realized that they were looking like pathetic, petty wankers to the entire world, and they’ve withdrawn their demands. I think Mr Kearns, the Homeowners Association GOD, has received a spanking.

None of the three members of the board in the scenic town 270 miles southwest of Denver was available for comment late Monday. Kearns and colleague Jeff Heitz both had their phone numbers changed to unlisted numbers Monday. Tammy Spezze, the third board member, did not return a call seeking comment.

Awww, it’s a romance made in the blogosphere: Sean Carroll and Jennifer Ouellette, my two very favoritest physics bloggers, are getting married. And it involves APS meetings and Fourier transforms, all intensely romantic.

This calls for some romantic imagery.

Happy birthday, Syaffolee!

I can guess what that all means—it’s from a description of the Panda’s Thumb and Pharyngula in a Polish newspaper. The rest of the article…eh, I don’t have a clue.

So there’s this election tomorrow, and the Republicans have consistently screwed the pooch for years, and people are starting to wake up and get more vocal about the incompetence, corruption, and dumbassery of this administration…but I am not sanguine about our prospects for getting rid of the villains. Tom Tomorrow explains why: even if these people were shown to be literally demons from hell, we’d still have to cope with…the undecided voters.

I lost all confidence in the American electorate in 2000 and 2004. I’ll be doing my part on Tuesday, voting and helping to turn out the vote, but I anticipate the election returns with a sense of dread.

There is a tradition among the regulars of the usenet group talk.origins to have occasional gatherings, usually at some major locus of evolutionary activity, and accompanied by beer. Such an event will be happening this Saturday, in London.

We’ll be meeting on these steps at 2pm:

That’s the Natural History Museum here in Kensington. Look for the bearded nerd with a black computer bag and a camera hanging from his neck; that’s me. I’ll be there with a distinguished and professorial science nerd scholar^*; that’ll be Laurence Moran. We’ll hang about the steps for a while, gathering together any fellow science geeks, talk.origins regulars and readers of Pharyngula, and then take a brief tour of the museum. Afterwards, we’ll depart for some local pub. If you’d rather skip the dry old bones stage of the festivities, you could meet us at the steps at 4pm, because that’s when we’ll find a nearby watering hole for the wet work.

After a few hours in the pub, we might go looking for food…you’re welcome to hang with us all that time, too. We can stretch out the festivities for as long as people are willing to talk.

^*He denies being a nerd.

The paternal view of childbirth is that you watch the mother struggle for hours, the child finally emerges, the midwife cleans him^* up, hands him to you, and that’s when he unloads a bladder full of pee on you. This photo of a newly hatched bobtail squid’s first reflex reminds me of that…

Euprymna tasmanica juvenile releasing ink on hatching.

Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide ^{(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll)}, by Mark Norman.

^*Boys are the most obvious culprits, since when they cut loose they hose down your shirt; girls discreetly dampen their blankies.

A news article describes his last moments, and Rangel, MD gets technical.

And please, everyone, we know he was brash and some people found him annoying…but we should all agree that death is deplorable, and there’s no justice in it.

The Crocodile Hunter has died. It is absolutely no surprise that it was an animal that did him in—he was pierced by a stingray—but it’s still sad to see such an enthusiastic advocate for wildlife go.

I’m not alone in feeling this way: it’s
a scienceblogs
thing
to regret this loss. And Skatje had quite the little girl crush on Steve Irwin some years ago.

It’s almost over, so work fast to wish archy a pleasant second half century.